Zeros

The Wrench Problem:  When Digital Violence Looks Like the Drug Trade The disappearance of Nancy Guthrie — 84-year-old mother of NBC anchor Savannah Guthrie , reported missing from her Tucson -area home in early February — has pulled an uncomfortable term into mainstream news coverage. Former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer floated the theory publicly: investigators may be dealing with a wrench attack , a growing form of violent crime in which victims are physically coerced into surrendering access to their digital currency holdings . [ The Sunday Guardian ] Whether or not that theory holds in this specific case, the term itself deserves scrutiny from anyone who holds digital assets and has ever posted about it anywhere. The name comes from a thought experiment. Wrench attacks are named after a hypothetical scenario in which an assailant uses a wrench to force someone to reveal their private keys. [ Newsweek ] The irony embedded in that origin story has never quite ...